


Rapunstiles.

by Bunnywest



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Kate is a witch, M/M, Peter's his knight in shining armor, Stiles is Rapunzel, fairytale AU, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 14:54:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12843555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunnywest/pseuds/Bunnywest
Summary: Sir Derek tells Sir Peter that while he was away, the boy was taken captive and held in the tower, and nobody's been able to rescue him.Peter's never one to back away from a challenge.





	Rapunstiles.

**Author's Note:**

> For Steter week 2017  
> Day four - Supernatural creature/Fairytale/Mythology AU

 

When Sir Peter comes back to Beacon Hills after six years away, he finds that not much has changed, with one exception.

There’s a tower, next to the old Argent property.

He asks Sir Derek about it, as he dines with the other Knights of Beacon.

Derek sighs, and tells Peter that to their shame, there’s a boy captive in the tower, and nobody has been able to rescue him.

He explains  “It happened several  years ago. Sheriff Noah was desperate,for his wife was ill.

He would do anything for his Claudia, so he sought the help of the Witch Argent.  She promised him that in exchange for healing his wife, she would take their firstborn on his sixteenth birthday, to be hers for life. The sheriff agreed, and his wife did recover, but a year later she fell, and broke her neck. The Witch Argent was suspected, but there was no proof.”

Peter cocks his head.

“Why save the woman just to kill her?” he asks curiously.

Sir Deucalion picks up the tale, telling him “The wife had a magic of her own, a spark that was passed down through her family. The Witch Argent knew of it, and she feared that the woman would be able to stop her taking the boy.”

“On the dawn of the boys sixteenth birthday, the tower was there, and the boy was gone. We know he’s in there, because we hear him singing, but the tower has no way in or out, there are no doors and no stairs, just a window.  We’ve approached the tower time and again to try and save the boy, but he never replies when we call.”

“So how does the boy live? He must be fed and clothed, surely?”

“I saw something, once” volunteers the youngest of the knights, Sir Scott.

“I was watching, and saw the witch standing at the bottom of the tower. She called out something, and Stiles threw down a rope of some kind for her to climb. But it was too far for me to hear what she said, and though I went back later and called and called to Stiles, he never threw the ladder down for me”

“Stiles? Pray, what is a Stiles?” Peter asks, amused.

“That’s his name. I knew him as a child, and that was what he called himself” Scott explains.

“The boy cannot be rescued, Peter, take it from those who have tried” says Sir Derek with a frown.

Peter hums.

“Perhaps not, nephew, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look, for I have no love for the Witch Argent, as you well know” he tells his nephew.

 

* * *

 

Sir Peter spends the next day just watching the tower.

He hears the boy singing, and it’s like nothing he’s ever heard before.

Off key, and loud, it’s almost as if the boy’s doing it on purpose.

_“Frere Jacques, frere Jacques_

_Dormez vous, dormez vous_

He warbles tunelessly.

Peter’s amused, despite himself. At least the boy doesn’t sound distressed.

He watches, and he waits, and at certain angles he sometimes catches a glimpse of a pale figure moving around the room, but nobody goes in, and nobody comes out.

Until nightfall.

Peter’s concealed in the nearby trees when he sees the Witch Argent ride up.

She dismounts her horse, and calls out loudly

Mieczyslaw, Mieczyslaw, let down your hair.”

“Calm the farm, Katie, I’m coming” Peter hears the boy call back, and he blinks.

_Katie?_

The boy calls the feared Witch Argent _Katie?_

He’s intrigued with the mysterious figure.

He watches as a long rope of what looks like….hair…..is lowered out of the window.

Kate has a sling around her body , and she climbs the rope.

Peter can hear the boy calling out “Jesus woman, can you pull any harder?”

“Behave, Mieczyslaw, or I might forget to feed you” the witch calls back cruelly.

And then she’s in the window, and if Peter listens carefully he can hear her ask “Well? Any sign? Any spark? Anything at all?”

And the boy answers “Nothing, but I’ve been trying, I swear. Maybe it skips guys, I don’t know.”

Kate’s voice is cold as she commands the boy “You will keep practicing, and if you see the slightest sign, you will tell me.”

“Yes, Katie” the boy recites obediently, but Peter swears he can hear mocking in that tone.

Kate emerges minus the sling and rides away, and Peter waits until she’s well and truly gone before he creeps over to the tower and calls softly “Mieczyslaw, Mieczyslaw, let down your hair.”

A head pops out the window a moment later, and Peter sees the boy’s face break into a delighted grin.

“Oh, thank god, someone figured it out! If I had to listen to Scott wandering around down there calling Stiles! Stiles! One more time, I was going to go mad.”

“Perhaps I could come up, and you can explain what I’ve figured out?”  Peter suggests with an arched brow.

Stiles regards him for a moment before saying “Yeah, sooo, I’m gonna guess you’re a Knight of Hale, looking as hot as you do. And since you’re not the Knight of Eyebrows, you must be the other one, the traveler. Hello, Peter of Hale. Climb up.”

And the boy throws down a massive coil of braided hair.

Peter gingerly tugs at it to test its strength, but Stiles calls  “Just climb it – I don’t even feel it.”

“How is that possible?” Peter wonders aloud.

“You’ll see when you get up here.” Stiles replies with a grin.

 

* * *

 

 

Sir Peter climbs the hair rope easily, and hops over the window sill and gets his first decent look at the boy.

He’s not a boy, not really.

He’s an attractive young man, and Peter’s immediately drawn to him.

He has a turned up nose, and a smattering of moles, and broad shoulders that have no place on someone who spends his time confined in a tower.

Trailing down his back and ending on the floor next to him in a coil is the rest of the rope, a thick braid of chestnut hair.

The young man is tall, and his eyes seem to change between whiskey and gold, and Peter finds himself enchanted.

Stiles is reclining on a sofa, one leg crossed over his knee, and he’s casually tossing a ball of light between his hands, catching it and spinning it.

Peter’s transfixed.

“So this is the spark that they speak of? “ he asks.

“What? Oh, yeah. That’s why Katie wanted me to start with. She knew I had magic. But woe is me, my magic is slow to appear. That’s what I tell her, anyway” he winks.

And then he tosses the ball in the air, and guides it down to land on his fingertips, where it sits and spins lazily.

“If she ever finds out that I came into it three years ago she’s going to lose her mind -  she’s been waiting five years” he laughs.

“So tell me Stiles, if you have your magic, why are you still here? And why haven’t you let anyone else up into your tower, if you could hear them calling you?” he asks, curious.

Stiles sighs.

“That was the only really decent bit of magic I’ve ever seen Kate do. She cast a spell so that the only way I could respond was if somebody used my real name. The one that exactly two people know – her and my Dad. “

He looks at Peter, considering. “How did you know what it was?”

“I’m in the habit of lurking in dark corners and listening to things I shouldn’t” he replies smoothly.

“Now, tell me about your hair?”

“Oh, yeah. Well. She might have spelled that to grow ridiculously long and strong, so she could climb it. She thinks it hurts – she doesn’t know I can do this” he grins, and waves his hand gently around the ball of light.

It glows, and stretches, and changes into a hook, and Stiles waves his other hand and his hair drapes gently over it. The magic holds it in place, so no matter how hard it gets pulled on, the hair near Stiles’ head stays loose and free.

“You used your spark to make a magical anchor hook” Peter muses, impressed.

“Oh, I can do a hell of a lot more with it” Stiles assures him.

‘Why not tell Kate what you can do? Surely she’d reward you?”

Stiles snorts.

“If she knew I could do this, she’d have me killing people and burning their houses down every day of my life. I’d sooner stay in the tower, thanks.”

Peter concedes that he has a point.

‘Hey, want something to eat? Kate feeds me pretty well. I told her that I remembered my mom saying a good diet’s essential to releasing the spark, so she brings me the best of everything.”

He waves a hand casually at the sling in the corner, and the cloth folds back to reveal a picnic basket.

“Really? She believed that?”

“Oh, you have no idea. She’s desperate for my spark to manifest, so anything I tell her might help, she provides.”

He turns wide, earnest eyes on Peter, and with a hitch in his voice says “I’m so sorry Katie, I don’t know what else I can do. Unless…….I know that my mom said that a soft feather mattress was the key to keeping her spark fresh. Maybe if I had a decent bed, I could release my magic sooner?”

He blinks innocently, and then smirks, and waves a hand towards a giant four poster bed in the corner.

“You’re really quite devious, aren’t you?” Peter marvels.

Stiles shrugs.

“Hey, if I’m going to be held prisoner, I’m going to be comfortable at least.”

And when Peter looks around the room, he sees that indeed, everything is of the highest quality, and Stiles wants for nothing except his freedom.

“I find myself amused that you call the Witch Argent ‘Katie’ and that she allows it” he comments.

“Oh, that? I told her that’s my special name for her because she’s like a mother to me. She hates it, but she puts up with it because she thinks it means I trust her. I mainly do it just to see her twitch every time she hears it”

Peter laughs loudly, delighted.

“You really are incredible Stiles, and I must admit I’m becoming more impressed with you with every passing minute” Peter tells him, completely smitten.

Stiles grins widely.

“Thanks. You’re not too bad yourself. I mean, clever _and_ hot, what more could a guy want? Now shall we eat, and then plan my escape?”

Peter finds himself unaccountably pleased that attraction doesn't only go one way.

* * *

 

They eat, and they talk, and Stiles flirts boldly and openly with Peter.

 And Peter?

He flirts right back.

He’s never met anyone like Stiles, quick witted and attractive and dangerously clever.

Hesitantly, when they’re talking about what to do once they get out of the tower, Stiles asks “When we leave, will you take me travelling with you?”

“But don’t you want to go back to your father?” Peter asks.

“My father, who bargained my life for my mother’s? Why would I go back to him?” Stiles says bitterly.

“I’d sooner travel with you. I _like_ you. Take me?”

Peter counts to three before saying “Of course I’ll take you.”

He doesn’t want to appear too eager.

They talk and make plans, and the night passes all too quickly.

It’s close to dawn when Stiles finally says “So, um, you getting into the tower’s broken part of the spell, but there’s one more thing needed before I can actually leave here with you.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we can arrange it” Peter tells him, smiling.

Stiles takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes, and _breathes_ , and a hazy golden tendril curls out from his fingertips, extending out towards Peter. It curls around the back of his head, and he finds himself getting drawn gently forwards towards Stiles, who’s sitting there with his pink lips parted and his eyes closed.

He looks so enticing that Peter can’t help but lean in and kiss him softly.

Stiles blinks, and opens his eyes, and they glow golden, and Peter can feel power surging through the kiss, lighting him up inside. He pulls Stiles closer and kisses him again, harder, and the boy tastes of smoke and ozone and desire, and as Peter pulls away he hears the tiniest metallic _clink_.

He looks down to see a thin golden chain lying broken on the ground next to Stiles’ ankle, and the boy is beaming at him.

“ _Now_ we can leave“ he tells Peter.

Peter looks more closely at the chain, and sees that it runs to an anchor point in the wall. Long enough for Stiles to move comfortably all around his rooms, but not for him to go any further.

“Enchanted, obviously. What was it that broke it?” he asks.

Stiles blushes a little, and Peter shouldn’t find that as endearing as he does.

“Kate spelled the chain so that the only thing that could break it was a first kiss, one that was driven by desire, and one that was unasked for.”

“She figured I’m such a long skinny ugly thing, nobody would ever want to kiss me. And if I asked, it wouldn’t work.”

Peter looks at Stiles consideringly.

“You know, whoever described you as long and skinny and ugly was either cruel or blind. I would happily gaze upon your form all day” he says sincerely.

Stiles blushes again, and murmurs “Thanks. And I know you mean it, because the kiss worked. So I know you must want me at least a little.”

“Oh I do, Stiles, I do. When we travel I promise to show you exactly how much.”

He’s rewarded with another blush.

Suddenly, a thought strikes him.

“I thought you said to had to be a kiss unasked for?  You drew me in with your magic, and sat before me like an offering. How could anyone resist that? Surely that was cheating?”

Stiles shakes his head, and tells Peter “Kate knows some magic, but she doesn’t understand how carefully you have to word these things. Technically, I never asked for that kiss.”

His eye sparkle with mischief as he adds “I just hinted very broadly.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, after some consideration, Peter convinces Stiles that the Witch Argent must be taken care of, or she’ll just track them down.

Stiles tells him that she normally comes just after dawn with food and drink, so they lay in wait.

Soon enough, they hear her calling “Mieczyslaw, Mieczyslaw, let down your hair.”

Stiles obediently sends the braid tumbling down, and Kate starts to climb.

They wait until she’s nearly at the top before Stiles calls out “Oh Katie, I have good news! I think my magic is starting to appear! I can do new things!”

Kate climbs faster, asking “What can you do?”

Stiles leans out of the window, and electricity crackles from his fingertips. 

He raises his hand and closes his eyes and _breathes,_ and the ethereal gold mist appears again, and before their eyes forms the shape of a large pair of shears.

Stiles looks Kate in the eye, and says “I can do this.”

He makes a snipping motion with his fingers, and the shears follow the motion, and as they cut the braid Kate Argent shrieks “NO! “ even as she falls towards the earth and lands with a sickening crack.

They watch as the braid falls down and covers her, and Stiles looks grimly satisfied.

He raises his hands again, and in a flurry of chopping motions rids himself of the rest of the braid, cutting and cutting and cutting until he’s left with short spiked hair, and Peter can’t resist the temptation to run his fingers through it, and tug Stiles towards him for another kiss.

Stiles responds eagerly, and they waste the first few minutes of Stiles’ first day of freedom learning the taste and shape of each other’s mouths. Neither of them is in a hurry to leave, and Peter particularly counts it time well spent.

“So, my clever little spark, how exactly do you propose we get out of the tower now that we have no braid to climb down?” Peter murmurs into Stiles’ ear.

Stiles extends his hands outwards wordlessly, and the golden mist appears, and drops over the side of the tower. It grows and grows and grows until there’s a golden rope to the ground.

Stiles turns his gaze to the wall and holds his palm out towards it, and the stream of energy  leaves his hand and anchors itself firmly to the bricks there.

He turns to Peter and offers “After you?”

They climb down the  rope, and Peter puts his sword through the heart of the Witch Argent, because he doesn’t trust her to stay dead like a decent person would.

Stiles doesn’t trust her to stay dead either, so he produces fire, and they burn the body.

Peter climbs up on his horse with Stiles nestled in front of him, and they make a short stop in the town just so that Peter can tell the other knights that he has, in fact, achieved the impossible, and that the Witch Argent is dead, and now he and his young man are leaving, and nobody knows when they’ll return.

“You called me _your_ young man, Sir Peter” Stiles says.

“Are you not?” Peter enquires mildly.

“I certainly am, my fair knight” Stiles responds, as he pulls Peter close, and golden tendrils wrap around the back of Peter’s head and hold him in the perfect position for another kiss.

This one’s also magical, but for different reasons than their first.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie - this was inspired by a Cards against Humanity card '"What would have kept Rapunzel in her tower?"  
> The best answer we've had by far was "A decent fucking internet connection."


End file.
